I am the GM/RL of Consequence-Stormrage (US). Myself and the majority of the other US top 100 Alliance GMs (all 7 of us) would like to bring an increased awareness on the current state of faction imbalance and would like to continue to shed light on this issue before it’s too late. It’s no surprise to the WoW community that Alliance has been slowly losing players throughout the years and currently, in Shadowlands, the speed at which Alliance is dying is more rapid than it was in the past.
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Guilds Moving Horde: This expansion alone, many guilds have either died or moved Horde for a variety of reasons. It seems that the common issue that makes a guild move Horde is recruitment issues. For starters, on Alliance, players tend to be extremely loyal to their guild and rarely want to leave. Not saying this is a bad thing, but with full guilds or players leaving to horde for more opportunities it is getting harder to find players to fill roles in your guild. As a result, this will force the hand of Alliance guilds to move horde and expand their recruitment to a bigger pool of players to try and plug holes before the guild dies.
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Hall of Fame/Warmode: It seems that Hall of Fame/Warmode (especially HoF) were systems put in to try and balance factions and promote faction pride. I think Warmode had decent success in promoting a Horde vs Alliance narrative in early BFA, but as time went on that started to die down. Also, Alliance Hall of Fame early on showed some success in motivating Alliance guilds to try and get better, but as tiers went on more and more guilds realized that Hall of Fame for Alliance was not as prestigious as it sounded and the Horde guilds getting HoF were on average significantly better than their Alliance guild counterparts.
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Issues with LFG: The Alliance looking for group community is extremely small and there are not many opportunities for even core end game systems like 15+ keys or PvP. From solo casual players to mythic raiders, this results in making access to end game content harder and/or less enjoyable than it should be.
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Concerns for the Future: As time goes on and more players/guilds leave Alliance, I feel that the US WoW community will slowly turn into the current OCE scene where most of their players are on one faction. In my personal opinion, what is the point of a faction divide when one of the factions is significantly weaker than the other?
We aren’t going to list potential solutions because we feel like it is not our place, and I know Reddit will have much to say, but something we would like from the developers is a roadmap or path to help re-energize Alliance. If that isn’t possible, at a minimum consideration for cross-faction play so that we can play with our friends who left for Horde (and who knows, maybe that is all we need).
We all love Alliance and have made it our home. We constantly jump through extra hoops to stay here, and we do it for the love of WoW and the Alliance. Thanks for hearing us out!
Marshmallon: Consequence - Stormrage
Finesthour: Vindicatum – Icecrown
Treattz: Emphasis - Sargeras
Revan: Vulgar – Sargeras
Startae: Skill Issue – Sargeras
Tjuice: Vigil – Sargeras
Claver: SOMA - Magtheridon
332 Likes
Blizzard.
Please fix the faction imbalance.
If you need to totally rebalance faction racials to get it done, please do so.
WoW is crying out for equality.
Don’t make us choose extinction.
“We either choose equality or we face extinction.” - Turgin.
34 Likes
My guild broke in 9.0 as well 
We couldn’t find people to recruit. Almost all the players in the guild ended up switching to Area-52 Horde.
I’ve also given thought lately to faction changing so I can get more high keys.
Edit: Really sad to read some of the posts down below. Don’t think this problem will get fixed anytime soon. Alliance is doomed to have a small population of people doing higher end content.
13 Likes
Fixing racial imbalances is impossible imo because it’s a player driven problem.
cross faction play is the only solution IMO.
39 Likes
Wasnt high elf supposed to fix the faction inbalance?
9 Likes
Game balance issues, including racial imbalance due to poorly implemented design, is a Developer issue.
29 Likes
That’s the only useful thing you could of done instead of writing out a list of issues of yours. The team is REALLY aware of this. The only solution is cross-faction play. You aren’t gonna change peoples attitudes to the idea of ‘‘alliance’’ and/or the ones not leaving to alliance 'cause their friends were always horde.
It’s a people problem. A lot don’t want to be alliance and that ain’t changing unless the sheep see top guilds switch.
7 Likes
Alliance already have racials as good or better than Horde. In MDI or AWC tournaments, most players choose Alliance (even though their live characters are Horde). No amount of buffed Alliance racials is going to be worth taking on the penalty of playing on the side with only about 10% of end-game players, unless you buff the racials by such a ridiculous amount that you just end up with 90% of players on Alliance side.
The only possible solution is allowing Alliance and Horde players to form guilds and groups together.
20 Likes
I don’t really think they are. The WoW developers are all Horde so they don’t actually understand the magnitude of the problem. If they had a clue then they would’ve fixed this a LONG time ago. For example when TBC Horde had the minor inconvenience of longer BG queues that got fixed immediately since the WoW developers felt it. Meanwhile the retail Alliance has been near dead for multiple expansions and they haven’t even attempted to address it.
57 Likes
Still needs to be said to shut up all the “you don’t even play high level endgame content or you’re posting on a low level character there is no faction problem i pug fine” nonsense
21 Likes
Then it sounds like Blizzard needs to incentivize Alliance side raiding somehow.
I personally think that the faction imbalance should end, cross faction groups should be allowed, however I would prefer to see it done both well and right.
Make it a short yet fun quest line. When we got the preview cinematic for BFA, did not Varian yell happily, “For AZEROTH!” Where’d that go? That’s right, ignored, just like most of the real story these days.
Rule of cool is story. Epic Do-over is the lore. Well, I for one choose to say no more.
The problem is that until Blizzard decides this for itself as a COMPANY, it won’t happen.
How do we convince them of something we can see and yet they’re not willing to quickly nor easily step away from? The faction divide has been a forced staple since Vanilla.
I say again the faction divide is wasting precious player time and fun.
It’s FUN to Raid, and with more skilled and capable people, the more fun it is overall.
Please make a good Proving Grounds again, Shadowlands Raids likely need it.
Then, there’s more Fun for ALL.
6 Likes
While we sit here in our arm chairs and judge, you have;
a. a rather new team in charge circa; Mid-legion-bfa.
b. they’ve stated a lot of times they are aware of the issue.
Problem is, we as players see it one way.
The developer mind is having to weigh other things.
Agreed, they have to weigh the profits from faction/server transfers, which far outweighs the benefit of actually fixing the problem.
33 Likes
Which still won’t happen. So it’s just regurgitating things already known.
I’d say… list your grievances, but add some possible solutions. Helps create a better discussion and useful one at that.
1 Like
Stay off that tinfoil there.
Send twitter messages to Mike Ybarra and although completely pointless and futile, to Ion as well.
Mike Ybarra @Qwik
Ion Hazzikostas @WatcherDev
WarcraftDevs @WarcraftDevs
6 Likes
/ thread right there 
(sad but true)
Make all races be able to choose either faction. At this point our character makes no sense aligning based on race alone.
Give all players a month or so of free faction changes to each of their characters due to the change being implemented. Once a year players should be given a free faction change. Allow LFG to allow all factions to participate in instanced content; raids, arenas, bgs, dungeons. Guilds can stay faction-aligned. Mythic restrictions will open up for all when either faction hits the limit.
No racial imbalances between factions, everybody can choose, you don’t have to delete all the achievements and faction specific items, toys, cosmetics, etc. If you like blue and gold you go ally and if you like red and black you go horde.
4 Likes
Permanent determination stacks for every 10% your server is down in pop actively raiding pinnacle content. People on low pop servers win because opening up content to lower skill tiers allows more recruiting, blizzard wins because the pinnacle raiders will transfer around servers weekly to keep the maximum buffs up.
This opinion is meant to be consumed as humor and not to be taken seriously by anyone.
4 Likes
Of course, who cares about getting HoF for the neighborhood touch football league, you’re only competing against others in the neighborhood. If you want to be prestigious you get NFL hall of fame competing against the best in the nation.
1 Like